Cyta announces the agreement for the commercial operation of the Cyprus-Egypt segment of its private submarine cable subsystem ALEXANDROS. Following the successful activation of the Cyprus-France segment in August 2010, the Cyprus-Egypt segment is planned to be activated during summer 2011, complementing available capacity and connectivity in the Mediterranean, ahead of other competing submarine systems passing through Egypt. Furthermore, the landing in Egypt provides the opportunity to transport Cyta traffic to key European and Asian destinations and cost-effectively reach regional markets accessible via Egypt.

ALEXANDROS subsystem is the result of the strategic co-operation agreement in the Mediterranean region between Cyta and Telecom Egypt (TE), according to which Cyta participates on an ownership basis in the ΤΕ submarine cable system TE NORTH (TEN), connecting Egypt with Points-of-Presence of TE and Cyta, in France. The TEN system has been constructed by Alcatel-Lucent and utilises eight fibre pairs with total capacity of more than 10Tb/s. The system is equipped with branching units which enable it to be extended to selected countries in the Mediterranean, thus creating a communications bridge between these countries, Europe, Africa, and Asia, as well as business opportunities in the Mediterranean and Eurasia. Under the agreement, the TEN system has been extended to Cyprus via a direct branch and Cyta has acquired separate fibre pairs between Cyprus-Egypt and Cyprus-France, each with 96x10Gbps total capacity. Cyta intends to further upgrade most of the 96 available wavelengths to 40Gbps, and later on to 100Gbps. The agreement also allows for an option of extending ALEXANDROS subsystem to a Cyta landing station, in Greece.

Through the extensive international telecommunications infrastructure of Cyta, which includes multiple submarine cable systems interconnecting with neighbouring countries and other international destinations, Cyprus currently constitutes a major telecommunications hub in the Mediterranean region. Through ALEXANDROS subsystem, Cyta achieves an optimum configuration for its business needs, enhancing connectivity in the Mediterranean and providing international network robustness and reliability. At the same time, ALEXANDROS allows Cyta to provide high-quality bandwidth to other telecommunications providers in Cyprus and elsewhere and access new markets, serving the international telecommunications needs of Cyprus in general.